I woke up feeling the most rested I had ever felt. The man who bought me -- that was, "Master", I suppose -- was sitting in a chair nearby, reading a book. I looked at the title of the book with interest. "The Last Days Of The Gods... we don't have that in our library. Can I read it sometime?"

He blinked, then smiled at me. "Good morning, Sasha. You're welcome to read any of the books in my library-- once you're finished your training for the day, of course. But you should start the day by greeting me 'Good Morning, Master', not by asking if you can read what book I'm reading."

"Oh! Good morning, Master." I started at him for a long moment. "...Training?"

"I told you I was going to teach you to train slaves, right? And the first step of that is learning how to be an obedient slave yourself. Now, for today I have an easy lesson and a hard lesson. Which would you like first?"

"...oh. Are they related? Does the easy lesson contain material for the hard lesson?"

He blinked, then laughed. "No, Sasha. Good question."

I considered this for a moment. "I feel very rested and full of energy, so I think perhaps it would make sense to do the hard lesson first."

"Okay. So the hard lesson... I'm going to hurt you."

I blinked and cowered, curling my tail around myself as I looked up at him. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, the hard lesson today is just to endure pain without complaining. As my slave, you're my belonging, so I can hurt you however and whenever I want. And your task is simply to endure it and smile and say, 'Thank you, Master.'"

I whimpered softly. "I... Mother never taught me how to do this."

"That's okay." His smile was gentle. "I'm not expecting you to be perfect on your first day, but I am expecting you to do your best."

"...okay. I'll do my best, Master. Did you have to learn this?"

"Have to? No, I'm not a slave, and I never have been." He scritched behind my ear. "Very few humans are."

"Ah, and most animalfolk are." I nodded. It made sense now.

He raised an eyebrow. "...most?"

"Well, me and my mother weren't, so transitively, I have to assume that there are other animalfolk who have escaped the system."

He stared at me for a long moment, then smiled. "Logical. But don't suggest that around anyone else-- or speak of your past of not being a slave, for that matter. It will only distance you from other animalfolk."

"Yes."

"Yes, Master."

"...I thought I was your slave and Sasha? Do we call each other Master?"

"...no, I was correcting your speech. When you say 'Yes' to me, you say 'Yes, Master' to acknowledge I am your owner and your Master."

"Oh!" I thought for a moment. "Yes, Master."

He smiled down at me and petted my head. "Good girl." A strange little spark of pleasure went off in my head.

"Why did... why did that feel so good?"

"...Sasha, when you ask a question, you should also append 'Master' to the end."

"When speaking to you, Master?"

"Yes. And well done." He paused for a moment. "As for why it felt so good... I activated a part of your mind that feels pleasure when I said 'good girl'. I'm going to keep doing that, and soon hearing 'good girl' will make you feel good in itself."

"...oh. Why are you doing that? And, how are you doing that?"

"It's Mind Magic, a most dangerous and ancient art. There are very few books still in existence about it, but I am one of the best practitioners alive. I'll teach it to you, in time. As to why? I'm training you to be obedient slave for me, right?"

"Right."

"So I am slowly training your mind to obey me wholeheartedly."

I furrowed my brow. Something sounded a bit off about that, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Master had that patient smile on his face. "And it will feel good and you'll be happy with me and take care of me?"

"Yes, exactly. That's why I became a slave trainer, Sasha... once slaves learn their role and utterly submit to it and their Master, they will be the happiest they can be in their position. And one day you'll help others like yourself learn the way to be good slaves and thus be happy. It's not an easy job, but it's very fulfilling."

My tail wagged. "And they'll be safe, because animalfolk are in trouble if they aren't slaves, Master?"

He laughed softly and reached up to scritch under my chin. "Good girl, you're a very quick learner. And safer, at least. Are you ready for your hard lesson?"

I tensed up and nodded.

"You'll want to relax. Tensing up shows your pain." He took out a small piece of metal, and swished it in the air, and suddenly it was a long piece of metal.

I watched with interest. "What is that?"

"It's a ruler. I'm going to use it to hurt you." A ruler! That was a device used for measuring, or a King or Queen or the like... probably the former, given the context. "Kneel."

I kneeled on the floor on the rug in front of his chair... or tried, I had seen other slaves do it, and read about it in books, but I had never done it myself, and my position was a bit awkward. He got up out of his chair and adjusted my position, before sitting back down. "This is the default slave kneeling position. It's different for sex slaves, and I'll teach you that later, but that's not your primary role. Put your hands out, palms up."

"...Yes, Master." I complied with his instructions, and he smacked my palm with the ruler, which hurt! I whimpered, pulling my hands back, my body tensing.

"Sasha, your lesson is to get used to this."

I put my hands back out and tried to relax.

"Breathe in and out slowly. Relax. It's just pain, I'm not doing actual damage today."

I slowly breathed in and out, and slowly relaxed again, except for a bit of tension in the shoulders, because I was expecting... ow! Another smack. This time I didn't pull back, though, nor whimper, and I smiled up at him, with tears in my eyes, but otherwise doing my best to mimic the expression of a smile. "Did I do good that time, Master?"

He blinked at me, and then a smile slowly spread across his face. "Very good. Very good girl, such a good obedient girl, totally trusting and giving her body up to her Master." My body jolted with a bit of pleasure as he called me a good girl, and he scritched behind my ears as he talked, which also felt really nice and relaxing. "Do you think you can do that a few more times for me?"

I nodded, and easily proved myself twice over... my eyes were tearing up, but other than that my face and voice when he hurt me seemed to please him.

"Such a good girl, yes you are, good girl who is so obedient and brave... now, sometimes I'll want you to show and express your pain. But it's important that you know that my happiness is more important than your comfort first."

I nuzzled into his petting... if he kept making me feel this good, I'd happily be smacked by the ruler all day. "...why is that, Master?"

"Slaves are their Owner's property. If their Owner wants, they can hurt them however they want, or even kill them. I could torture you to death, and no one would do anything about it."

I whimpered and looked up at Master. "You... you won't do that to me, will you Master?"

"If you aren't a good girl for me, I will sell you off to whoever pays the highest price. Maybe you'll be luckier than last time and no one will chop off your limbs, maybe not."

I smiled up at him despite my teary eyes. "I'll be a good girl, Master, I promise."

He pulled me close into a hug and stroked my back. "I know you will. I have no intention to hurt you, I just want you to be aware of the reality of the situation." I nodded a little.

"Thank you for explaining, Master."

"So to a slave, their Owner is their entire world." He looked over to the book he was reading earlier, closed and on top of the bed-table, then shook his head slightly. "Let's not get complicated about it. If your Owner is unhappy with you, it means you don't have any guarantee of safety or happiness. Not that you do anyways, as a slave... but the best you can do as a slave is be a very good obedient girl for me, try your best and excel, and that is how you keep yourself the safest, the happiest. If I want to punish you, you should be worried, because that means you messed up. But if I want to hurt you just because I want to hurt you, it should make you happy, because it means you have value. It means I have no intention of getting rid of you because you fulfill a purpose for me. Do you understand?"

I nodded slowly, tears rolling down my cheeks now, and smiled up at him. "Yes, Master."

"...you're going to have to get better at controlling your tears. But you are doing very well for your first day, exceptionally even."

"You've trained others before?"

"Slaves? Countless. An assistant to follow in my footsteps, though? A few, but none of them worked out, and I had to sell them."

I felt terrible in the pit of my stomach. "Of course. Because their value only comes in pleasing you, Master, and doing good for you."

He smiled. "Exactly, exactly, good girl." Another little pulse of pleasure. "Well, the ones who did their absolute best to me, I went out of my way to sell to someone I knew would appreciate an obedient good girl. The ones who didn't... their fate was less important to me." He stroked along my neck, and took hold of my chin, tilting it up. "Understood?"

"Yes, Master!" To have a home with Master I needed to do my best... well, I had confidence in my abilities. All I had to do is follow directions, and ignore how bad it felt to be so worthless, able to be cast aside at any moment. I smiled up at him, wagging my tail to hide the pain.

He stared down at me, a hint of worry in his eyes. "Tell me that you are the Queen of this country, as if you believe it."

"I am the Queen of this country," I said resolutely.

"...hmm... you really can lie without feeling bad about it at all, can't you?"

"Yes... why would I feel bad about it? Is that bad, Master?"

He smiled down at me. "No, I can tell what your heart is truly saying regardless, after all, with my Mind Magic. It's actually very very good, being able to lie whenever you wish is a very good skill for a slave trainer. But do keep in mind you can't keep the truth for me."

I nodded. "How much longer is the hard lesson?" Hearing all these painful things was much worse than the strike by the ruler.

"Mmm?" He blinked a few times, then laughed. "I suppose we can be done for today. We can switch over to the easy lesson now... you've learned to surrender to pain, now you'll learn to surrender to pleasure."

My tail wagged. That sounded a lot better. "Yes, Master!"

"Now, we haven't gotten you dressed yet... why don't you lay down on the bed, just like you are?" He took his clothes off, and I looked at his body with interest. He didn't have breasts, and he did have a... penis, I think?

I lay down on the bed on my side. "Your body is different than mine. I'd only seen diagrams before."

He smiled gently. "...yes, I suppose it is." He climbed into bed next to me, and slid his hand along my arm, which felt nice enough, along my belly, which felt weird and made me giggle, and down between my legs and suddenly I felt like I did not like this very much. It just felt wrong somehow.

"Mmm? Just relax, you'll get used to it, Sasha."

"...yes, Master." I did my best to relax, and started to feel a little pleasure as he continued to touch me, and relaxed into it. Some part of me was not happy about this, but it was easy enough to ignore that and pay attention to the rest, how the pleasure in me was slowly building as he rubbed gently at my crotch. A strange little sound came out of my mouth. "Ah, sorry Master, I don't know why I'm making sounds like that."

"That's called a moan, it's a sign you're feeling pleasure... tell me, do you tend to look at men or women more?"

"...women? There's something about them that draws my eye, I think. Perhaps... I like the current fashion of women better, Master?"

"I see... we're going to have you train other women, Sasha, when you're ready. But for now, we're going to train your body that it's utterly mine." He slowly thrust a finger inside me, another finger rubbing at the outside, and I made the noise again, that is, moaned, clinging to him. It still felt weird, but the discomfort with what he was doing was almost imperceptible now, and even if it returned, it was my role to endure things to make him happy, right? But right now his hand was making me feel very good and very happy, and things got very intense and my body shuddered as I screamed, overwhelmed, and slowly relaxed back into a blissed daze.

I smiled up at him. "Thank you, Master...."

"Welcome, my Sasha. This was the beginning of your sexual training. I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about pleasuring men and women. And remember, you're my belonging... I can give you pleasure whenever I want just because I want to, just as I can give you pain."

That didn't seem that bad right now with my body still full of pleasure. The pleasure was so much more overwhelming than the bits of pain he had given me. I pressed a little closer against him. "What can I do to make you happy?" I needed to keep him happy, but also he had just made me feel really good... he was taking care of me... I wanted to make him happy too.

"Good girl..." Another little thrum of pleasure. I could listen to him call me that all day. "Put your hand on my cock... ah, that's another word for 'penis', there you go... now stroke it... grasp it, ah, not that strong! There you go, gently, good girl..."

I followed his directions, increasingly desperate to please him, and then he was moaning too, until eventually his cock spewed a white fluid over my belly. "Ah. Is that semen?"

He smiled and kissed me on the cheek. "Yes. The more prosaic term is 'cum'. You can stop stroking my cock now, Sasha. And you can relax. You're doing very well. I'll tell you if you should be worried."

I relaxed against him. I could do this.